Purim is coming up and it's time to make Shalach Manot. Shalach Manot are supposed to be ready to eat food though a lot of people seem to be confused about the meaning of the word "food". When making Shalach Manos, ask yourself, is the "food" you're planning on giving, food? Is this something that you regularly eat during the week or on Shabbat? Nuts, chocolate, grape juice, wine, hamantaschen I can live with, but all the candy, most of which is chemical garbage is where I draw the line. Most of the Shalach Manot contain tons of this bad for you, inedible garbage that will get thrown out before Pesach anyway. Stop wasting your money on this garbage because that's exactly where it's gonna end up. Another pet peeve are the baskets. You spend a lot of money on them every year and every year, in a month they end up in the garbage. I, for one, don't care if I get a sandwich in a plastic sandwich bag or in a $5 wicker or metal basket. You're not giving people birthday presents, you're giving people food. Do you like getting fifteen baskets that take up half your house or would you prefer something that can fit on your table?
A couple of years ago, I decided that I will not follow the herd and even if I stand alone, I will give food, not garbage. Over the years, together with grape juice, beer and vodka I have given out baked potatoes, onigiri, salted fish and sandwiches. Last year, one of my friends gave out, in my opinion, one of the best shalach manot, an apple and a banana. It's cheap, everyone likes them and I was very happy to have something to eat while waiting for the food to be brought out at the shul's party. Another friend gave out very nicely made sushi platters, though I wouldn't recommend this for someone who's short on time and has a big list of friends.
Here are some suggestions for a nice, healthy shalach manot: sandwiches, fruits, vegetables, home baked pastries, chicken legs, hot dogs, salads, etc. Want to be really cool? Get three or more pizza pies, a couple of cases of coke and bring them to shul for shacharit. What am I giving out this year? Probably sandwiches again, together with some hard to find Japanese beer, imported Chinese White tea and maybe hamantaschen.
Alot of people give healthy food. For example, two years ago, we gave you a raw potato.
ReplyDeleteDon't tempt me. I just might decide to give you vobla again.
ReplyDeleteAmen to healthy! Though I must say kids (and coworkers the following day) still enjoy the nosh...
ReplyDeleteVery bad for the kids and anyway a lot gets thrown out. I give/get around 20 and that's a lot of garbage.
ReplyDeleteI agree that more people should be going for healthy food. The homemade food is often an issue, because many people may not "trust" s/t without a label. Its almost ridiculous, but once I was given a wafer by a friend of mine at work. The label of the wafer did not have a hechsher, but my friend assured me there was one on the box. I was about to break a peice off and share with a fellow coworker, and she was like "and you trust her?"
ReplyDeleteMost of my friends are from shul and we got to each other for shabbat so they trust me with whatever I give them. Where do you work?
ReplyDeletemoshe: I see. You give to friends from shul. That makes sense then. lol. We usually do that, but we do have alot of 'random' people we don't see often that we have to give too, and we don't have time to make "special" anything... so we stick with packaged goods.
ReplyDeleteBut, we have one super awesome family friend, and she'll be the only one getting something awesome, and healthy as well.
oh...and I work for Apartment Managment Associates.
ReplyDeleteI pack nuts and candies in the little plastic baskets mushrooms come in. I'll also give a bottle of wine. And I have friends who love my vegetable soup.
ReplyDeleteBrought 3 to my kid's morahs this morning.
ReplyDelete2 onigiri with black caviar, onigiri look like hamantashen btw, a can of Asahi and 2 packets of Exotica China White tea from Fukien province.
Moshe: I can't help it but I love "garbage" so I look forward to purim for that reason. Unfortunately this purim I got my wisdom tooth out so I couldn't eat any of it.
ReplyDeleteMy mother actually keeps all the baskets and bags people give the shaloch manos in, then when it comes to the next year we go through them again and either it brings back memories of the person who gave it, or if not then we recycle them and use them and give it to others.
But yea my best shaloch manos is from my cousins who give us a sandwich. They give a pack of pastrami, a pickle and a roll and your right real food in the end is the best.